Another month, another surface analysis from Adam Nagourney

[ProSense]

Andrea Batista Schlesinger

03.06.2006

Another month, another surface analysis from Adam Nagourney

Ah, the power of the political reporter.

Snip...

In his latest non-article, headlined "For Democrats, Many Verses, but No Chorus," Nagourney argues that "From Arizona to Pennsylvania, from Colorado to Connecticut, Democratic candidates for Congress are reading from a stack of different scripts these days."


His evidence: one candidate is talking about the prescription drug bill. Another on the reliance on oil imports. Another on GOP cronyism. Another about getting out of Iraq.

Snip...


Let us deconstruct Nagourney's assumptions:

1. Candidates only talk about one thing.
2. When candidates choose a specific area of focus, they are split on what it means to be a Democrat. (Nagourney actually points to no meaningful disagreements among the party's candidates until the very end of his 1,500 A1 piece: "some Democrats want to call for raising automobile mileage standards to conserve energy, but Democrats in Michigan have resisted that idea." Not exactly the basis for calling a party split. He then cites the differing opinions over the timetable for Iraq withdrawal, which is certainly a more meaningful area of debate, but within the context of all Democrats critiquing the war as it is being led, it's again not much of a split.)
3. A theme and the illustration of that theme are the same thing. When he says "Democrats have experimented with several themes: corruption in Washington, Medicare, a Republican Congress acting as a rubber stamp for the president, governmental incompetence and ... a choice between 'change and more of the same'" he confuses apples and oranges. Medicare isn't a theme, and neither is the rubber stamping of the president's agenda. Both are symptoms of the fact (theme) that the current direction of the country is the wrong one for working Americans.
4. Again, that the prescription drug plan, the reliance on oil, the war, and cronyism are "scattershot messages," as opposed to symptoms of the same problem: an administration out of touch with the kitchen tables of its citizens and in bed with corporate America. See point 3.
5. There are no regional differences that require different approaches.
6. A party that disagrees on all of the solutions to a set of agreed-upon problems cannot be strong.

Snip...

Unfortunately, he doesn't do a real reporting job on any of those 3 articles, and certainly nothing that leads to the grand conclusion that the party is divided, that there is no coherent message, or that Republicans did this any better. He himself writes that the Contract with America only appeared a few weeks before the 1994 elections.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-batista-schlesinger/another-month-another-su_b_16891.html

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[niyad]

1. WHO is adam nagourney and why do we care what he thinks?

[gratuitous]

2. Oh, I suppose you expect Nagourney to EARN his six-figure salary?

Well, forget that! Especially since the News division of the Times doesn't communicate at all with the Editorial page. So, while there are a few editorials that rightly score the Republicans for their corruption and their murderous policies, News writers like Nagourney and Elisabeth Bumiller (not to mention the departed and not missed Judith Miller) keep writing their feel-good narratives right of the RNC blast faxes.

And who are the Democrats that Nagourney quotes? Not one of them is a sitting Democrat, they're all challengers: One from Connecticut, a Blue state; one from Colorado and one from New Mexico, two purple states, Colorado tinged Red, New Mexico Blue-ish; and Arizona, a solid Red state. And Nagourney's startling conclusion from this survey of less than 1% of the House races? The Democrats aren't selling a single, unified message.

Staggeringly inept. Back when I edited my high school paper, I would have handed such a story back to the writer and suggested more digging. At the Times, they pay Nagourney six figures.